Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: OPINION

In Tuesday's issue of The North Texas Daily, we reported a story about student and faculty diversity on campus. Our reporter found a significant margin between white students and tenured faculty and those of other races. This brought up a few questions among the editorial board: primarily, is this a bad thing, and if so, what can be done to bring about change?

Diversity is an important part of any college campus. College is meant to prepare students for the real world, and experiencing different cultures and viewpoints is an integral part of the collegiate experience. NT officials should be doing everything in their power to ensure that the campus is diverse and welcome to a multitude of different ethnicities.

As it stands now, NT's undergraduate population is 66 percent white, 13 percent black, 12 percent Hispanic and 5 percent Asian. Officials should be recruiting students to shake up those numbers. As a student noted in Tuesday's article about diversity in the classroom, "I look around, and it's like I am sitting in 1930." When NT students begin to notice the limitations of diversity in such a manner, officials should be alerted that something should be done.

NT should be working to make the campus appeal more to a diverse class of students. There are many groups on campus that promote diversity; why can't the university be just as proactive? One way to make sure this happens is to look at the diversity among faculty and staff and how it mirrors the student body. Unfortunately, it is in even worse shape than student diversity.

When tenured professors were analyzed, 83 percent were found to be white, leaving 17 percent for all other races. Olivia Sanders, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said in the article that she "needs a professor who will know my background." This isn't always accomplished when 453 tenured professors are white, 31 are Asian, 20 are black and 19 are Hispanic.

NT is in a prime position to deal with its diversity issue. The administration will have a wealth of money pouring into the university next fall behind the 7.9 percent tuition increase. This money should be used to hire a more diverse staff, but then again, the university can't really hire anyone until this perplexing salary freeze ends, so it's kind of a moot point.

But just think of all the money that will be waiting to hire new faculty members, such as in the Radio, Television and Film Department, which lacks a tenured black professor.

NT made a step in the right direction by hiring Gilda Garcia as vice president for institutional equity and diversity. She has made strides to increase diversity in this campus; now let's see if the university can think of interesting ways to bring in more diverse students and faculty.

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